Josh Reynolds - Master of Death

He sprang for W’soran again, his face contorted in a terrifying snarl within his dragon helm. With a thought, W’soran urged his mount into the air with a single snap of its wings, but too late. Abhorash’s hand flashed out and his fingers sank into the gangrenous flesh of the zombie-dragon’s flank.

Even as W’soran sought to put distance between them, Abhorash hauled himself up, eyes blazing. ‘I knew you wouldn’t stay out of it, you withered old fool,’ Abhorash roared. ‘I warned him that he was only courting betrayal by letting you live!’

‘Who has betrayed who, eh, champion? You betrayed your queen and your new followers by serving a hag-ridden madman,’ W’soran said, rising from his saddle, cloak whipping about him as his mount soared high into the air. ‘What price your loyalty, Abhorash? What has he promised you?’

‘I do not have to explain myself to such as you,’ Abhorash growled.

‘No, nor would I care to hear it, even if you deigned to do so, brute,’ W’soran said. Then, so saying, he leapt from the dragon’s back, and plummeted downwards. While he yearned to wipe the self-righteous sneer from Abhorash’s face, the warrior was not his prey this day.

As W’soran hurtled away, the zombie-dragon twisted around. Abhorash, dislodged by the beast’s undulations, fell, but not for long. The corpse-dragon, responding to W’soran’s urging, coiled about the warrior like a striking serpent, its jaws agape and its talons crunching into the vampire’s armour as it seized him the way an eagle might seize a rat. Its wings flapped once, carrying it higher, and dragged Abhorash into the dark sky.

W’soran dropped through the darkness. His spectral scarabs swarmed about him as he fell, wrapping him in a cocoon of ghostly light, and in the blink of an eye, he was no longer in the air, but standing in the courtyard beyond the walls of Mourkain. His sudden appearance startled Ullo and Arpad. The former grunted and asked, ‘Abhorash?’

‘Occupied,’ W’soran said. As if on cue, the zombie-dragon screeched somewhere far above. He continued, ‘Morath?’

‘Gashnag organised a counter-charge. He and Morath are pulling back what’s left of the usurper’s troops. They’re falling back to the next line of defences,’ Arpad growled. ‘They’re not giving an inch unless we wash it in bone-chips and blood. And we still haven’t taken the outer palisades!’

‘Abhorash’s Hand is to blame for that. That bastard Walak and his cursed brother are out there. It’s all our men can do to keep them contained to the southern palisades,’ Ullo snapped. ‘But we hold the entrance to the city — if we can push on, and take the palace…’

‘If we can take Ushoran, you mean?’ W’soran asked. He stretched, and felt the raw power of Mourkain tug at him. It seemed to grow and shift at his notice, like the heat from a stoked forge. It was feeding on the death agonies of the hundreds who were dying even at that moment, swelling like a toad gorging itself on gnats.

In a way, this was what Nagash had wanted — for all life to be scoured away and the world to be wiped clean. Perhaps that was what Ushoran wanted now as well, and perhaps this moment was not by W’soran’s design alone. The thought filled him with anger, that even now, even here, he was being used as a tool to scour life from the territories he claimed. In invading, in inciting slaughter, he was merely providing Ushoran with the raw materials he’d need for later conquests.

‘Even after all these centuries, is that how you still see me?’ W’soran muttered, casting a glare towards the distant palace. It was a massive structure, bristling with outcroppings and crude structural additions that seemed to serve no purpose save ornamental.

Though it had been designed to look like one, it was a pyramid in name only; the resemblance was superficial. It was a crude mockery of the great pyramids of Nehekhara, devised by barbaric minds and built by unskilled hands. Heavy dark stones had been piled atop one another much like the grim barrows which dotted the northern lands. It careened high above the city, and stable growths of structure flourished along its length. There were narrow windows and balconies and things that might have been towers. It crouched like a beast over the winding river which encircled and ran through Mourkain, and the rest of the city seemed to recoil from it, as if in fear.

He could feel the malignant will within it, beckoning him closer. Ushoran was as eager for this confrontation as he was. He had never denied himself an opportunity to prove his superiority over his followers, flaunting his might the way a foppish courtier might flaunt a fine cloak. ‘I am coming, old friend,’ W’soran growled. ‘We go forward. If we must drown this city in death to take it, so be it!’

Ullo and Arpad shared a look and then both Strigoi grinned. ‘You aren’t half the coward Melkhior made you out to be, sorcerer,’ Arpad said.

W’soran ignored the backhanded compliment. Overhead, the zombie-dragon shrieked again. The war machines he’d brought continued to fire from outside the city, hurling rocks and debris against the walls and into the city itself, and the street trembled beneath his feet. He could hear the clangour of weapons from around him, as his grave-legions fought against Mourkain’s defenders. Over the tops of nearby roofs, he caught sight of a bone-giant, a heavy howdah on its broad shoulders. Skeletal archers fired down as the bone-giant stomped through the streets. His acolytes could keep the army functioning, while he turned his attentions to more important matters.

Even if they couldn’t, it wouldn’t matter. His army had done its job, and well. It had delivered him to the time and place he required and whether it survived or was destroyed now was of no consequence to him. Even Melkhior, squatting in his tenuous citadel, was of no more use, and good thing as well, for the flow of wealth and reinforcements had dried up swiftly.

The clopping of hooves caught his attention and he and the other vampires turned to see Voloch, new king of the Draesca and lord of the Grave-Host, and his wights approaching, accompanied by several renegade Strigoi, including the bulky brute known as Dhrox and the whipcord-thin lunatic known as Throttlehand. Voloch saluted with his double-bitted axe. Chown had succumbed to the helm’s poisonous touch a year earlier, but Voloch was easily his match. Now Chown had joined his predecessor Shull amongst their descendant’s bodyguard.

‘We have breached the walls, oh Speaker for the Dead,’ Voloch said. ‘Our forces stream into Morgheim, but they face stiff resistance. We must break the enemy, and soon, for our forces are stretched thin.’

‘Abhorash’s Hand is scattered,’ Throttlehand rasped, stroking his throat with an armoured claw. ‘They’re holding what they’ve got, but they can’t mount an organised defence, not without the Great Red Dragon holding their hands.’

‘Crush ’em,’ Dhrox rumbled as he smacked his hairy paws together. His lumpen features were covered in dried gore and combined the worst aspects of bat and wolf. ‘Smash ’em and suck the pulp.’

‘I’d say Dhrox speaks for all of us,’ Ullo growled.

‘Good,’ W’soran said. ‘We will push straight through the city, like jamming a dagger into a heart. Let nothing stand in our way.’

They began moving forward, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. They flooded the streets, smashing aside barricades and driving back the men holding them. Swarms of bats flapped ahead of them, attacking the defenders, blinding and harrying them. Voloch’s mounted wights thundered ahead of the slower skeletons and vaulted the barricades, followed by over-eager Strigoi like Dhrox. W’soran’s eyes strayed continually to the pyramid. Ushoran had not shown himself, and W’soran knew that he was waiting in his throne room. Nagash too had refused to bestir himself, until the last moment.